


Take You On a Cruise

by lolcat202



Category: Battlestar Galactica (2003)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-15
Updated: 2017-02-15
Packaged: 2018-09-24 14:16:58
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,925
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9754757
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lolcat202/pseuds/lolcat202
Summary: AU Tumblr prompt: Laura and Bill are both reluctantly attending a singles retreat at the prodding of their families. One of them is injured on one of the outings, and are forced to interact, and well, you know...





	

Bill loved his sons, but sometimes he hated them. Lee, happy with Dee. Zak, happy with Kara. Even Carolanne was happy with…whatever his name was. The three of them were convinced that Bill had a huge gaping hole in his heart, so for his 55th birthday, they sent him on a singles cruise.

He should have cashed in his ticket and stayed in Seattle, done the tourist thing. Seattle was a nice enough town, and God knew he was a fan of port cities. Still, he boarded the boat and threw his duffel bag on the bed that he was sure his sons paid far too much for, but was still bigger and probably more comfortable than his rack on his last tour. He was always more comfortable at sea than on dry land, and the trip was paid for, and honestly…what did he have to lose?

As they cast off, confetti and streamers circling around him, he tried to be grateful for the gift his sons had given him, not bitter for many times he’d set sail to the Middle East without ribbons and fanfare. He was retired, done with the Navy. Being shipboard was a pleasure, not a duty. Still, his skin itched with the memory of polyester uniforms, and he fought against his instinct to wave to the wife and sons that were nowhere near the ship nosing its way through Puget Sound. 

He kicked at the paper ribbons and made his way down the balcony and through the corridors that led to the door to his stateroom. Seven days in Alaska, and then he could retreat to his studio apartment in Walnut Creek. Seven days, and he could resume reading books, building model ships, and waiting for Lee’s firstborn to arrive.

In the meantime, the ship had a bar and a casino. It wasn’t a total loss.

The first day on the cruise was ‘at sea.’ A very generous description for boredom, coupled with no Wifi. Fortunately, Bill had no problem entertaining himself during lonely hours aboard a boat cutting through the Pacific Ocean. He had a shipboard credit for drinks, he had a stack of cash Zak pressed into his hand for the onboard casino, and he had his favorite book. He made conversation at dinner, watched a show that just depressed him, and hit the rack before 11pm. What a great vacation.

The second day, he woke up early and headed out to the aft deck after he downed a cup of coffee. Bill settled in a lounge chair and flipped through the pages of _Searider Falcon_ to find where he’d left off the day before.

He was just starting the seventh chapter when he realized that he was no longer alone. Nobody came on a cruise to Alaska to sunbathe, even a singles cruise, and yet…the woman beside him was baring more than a little skin in the morning sun.

Bill was retired, not dead. He took one look and realized that _Searider Falcon_ , as much as he loved it, was going to have to wait. Moore’s prose was nothing compared to the legs he could see out of the corner of his eye.

She wasn’t quite his age, but not far behind. Her skin was fair - maybe Irish, maybe European, maybe she just bought good sunscreen at the local drugstore. She wore a large-brimmed hat and dark sunglasses to keep the late summer sun out of her eyes. Funny that he couldn’t see her face, but he could see every freckle on her chest.

Bill was suddenly very grateful that he’d gone on this cruise.

Still, even though it was a singles cruise, he wasn’t the type of man to strike up a conversation with a stranger (much to Saul’s dismay over the years).

He eyed the paperback she was reading. _Blood Runs at Midnight_. Sounded like crap pulp fiction, but at least she was reading. The last woman he’d gone on a date with could barely read the cover of a magazine before she got distracted.

He contemplated asking her about the book, but before he could open his mouth, the ship’s horn echoed two short blasts.

Shore leave. ( _Can’t shake old habits_.)

They had an excursion for the Mendenhall Glacier, something he’d been looking forward to a good half-hour earlier. Now, he was once again regretting being forced to abide by someone else’s schedule.

She closed her book and sighed before pushing herself off the lounge chair with a hum and a shake of her hair. He’d missed it earlier, tucked under her hat, but it fell over her shoulders as she tucked her book in her bag, catching the late summer sun. Dark brown, but he didn’t miss the light reflecting glints of gold and red before she gathered her things and disappeared through the door.

Suddenly he owed his kids a thanks for sending him on this cruise.

***

Wading his way through the hundreds of people who were most likely forced onto this cruise by equally ungrateful children, he tried to find a little bit of space to enjoy the grandeur of the landscape before him. Thirty years in the Navy, and he was pleasantly surprised that the world still had a surprise or two for him.

The ten years before his retirement had been spent in the seas and deserts of the Persian Gulf. Compared to sand and sun, a giant glacier was a welcome change of pace. The Mendenhall Glacier was impressive yes, but he had to admit it wasn’t even close to the best thing he’d seen on the trip, and it was only the second day.

He chose his steps carefully along the beach, keeping the glacier in his peripheral vision. No doubt Zak and Lee would ask about what he’d seen and done, and somehow, he thought a ten-minute diatribe about some woman’s legs wasn’t exactly what they wanted to hear, especially since he didn’t even know her name.  Then again, it was a singles cruise. Maybe what they really wanted to hear about _was_ someone’s legs.

Maybe he was far too close to his sons.

The glacier was icy cold, white, blue and translucent. Begged to be admired from afar and touched up close but threatened to freeze anyone who reached out. Same as the woman he’d seen that morning. The same futile unapproachability. He surveyed the cold blue veins running through the glacier. Cold, and beautiful, and completely unattainable.

Chapter seven, safe and predictable, was waiting for him in his cabin. He headed away from the glacier and back to the parking lot.

He was maybe about a hundred feet from the ship’s tour bus when someone in front of him hit a patch of ice and came down hard, letting out a small squeak of feminine surprise her when tailbone met earth. Bill took a few long steps and grabbed the poor victim of the slick sidewalk under her arms, setting her more or less back on her feet.

He didn’t recognize her at first, not until he got a good look over her shoulder at the expanse of white, freckled skin exposed by the v-neck of her black sweater. Suddenly, the desert heat was nothing compared to the flush in his skin.

“You ok?” he asked, a little more gruffly than he’d intended. His fair maiden in distress pushed away from him, brushing slush and grit from the seat of her jeans.

“Fine,” she said, her tone more than a little embarrassed. She straightened under his gaze and looked up to meet his eyes.

No sunglasses this time. Just bright green emerald eyes, clearer and deeper than the Adriatic.

And he thought her _legs_ were impressive.

“Thank  you,” she said. “I’m not used to winter.”

“It’s August,” he replied. “Not exactly winter.”

 _It’s August?_ Jesus, no wonder he was single. He used to be charming, back in the days before marriage and kids and rations. Must have left that back in basic training.

“August in California looks a little different,” she said with a shrug. She thanked him again and turned back to the bus, but only managed one step before she faltered. He caught her elbow before her legs could give out beneath her.

“You’re not ok.”

She opened her mouth to argue, but before she could get a word out, he wrapped his arm against her waist. “Lean on me. I’ll get you back to the bus.”

They took halting steps, him slowing his pace to keep time with her, her leaning more and more of her weight against him. It’d be faster to just pick her up and carry her, but he’d had a good day so far, and he didn’t want to ruin it by getting slapped for being forward. Her ankle might be busted, but he had no doubt that her hands worked just fine.

 _I’ll bet they do_. He might have left his charm back in basic, but his libido was still very much present and accounted for.

When they got back to the bus, he tucked her into a seat and settled beside her. “When we get back to the ship, I’ll take you to the infirmary to get that checked out.”

She rolled her eyes and huffed a little bit. “Figures. First vacation I take in ten years, and I manage to make an ass out of myself.”

“Maybe you should have taken a cruise to Mexico. Far less dangerous.”

She shrugged. “What’s the point of taking a vacation, if it doesn’t get you out of your head and into dangerous territory?”

A very good question. At the moment, he had absolutely no desire to be in his head, not when she was sitting so close to him that he could catch the faintest whiff of perfume, or shampoo or fabric softener. Something delicate and floral, taking his libido down paths that were far more dangerous territory indeed than an icy walkway to a tour bus parking lot. _Get a grip, Bill_.

“Bill Adama,” he said, extending his hand to her.

She took his hand and gave it a firm shake, far more steady and confident than he would have expected from such a soft-spoken woman. “Laura Roslin.”

Something about her name rang a bell in the far corners of his mind, but he ignored it in favor of savoring her soft skin against his callused palm. “Thank you for coming to my rescue,” she said. She gave his hand a slight squeeze, then dropped it, crossing her arms and tucking her delicate fingers away from his reach.

When she broke contact, his blood flow managed to redirect itself from his palm back to other, more necessary parts of his body. Laura Roslin? The secretary of education? He may be retired, but he still read the newspapers. Laura Roslin had just headed off a massive teachers’ strike, and not a moment too soon, if Lee was to be believed.

Lee was an idealist, and most of what he said to his father went in one ear and out the other. Still, he remembered Lee waxing poetical about Secretary Roslin’s ability to negotiate with the teacher’s union, despite the decidedly unpopular position they’d taken about teaching to growth rather than proficiency. Even Bill had to give her credit for not knuckling under to setting creationism as scientific policy, and that was well before he’d seen her legs.

He may not believe in God, but her legs…they did make for a convincing argument for the presence of a very benevolent Almighty.

 _Shut up, Bill, you asshole_.

As the bus filled, he asked her about the strike, and about her policies on public schools. She might have been a little reticent to discuss her aching ankle, but she came alive when talking about her job. She was halfway through a diatribe about affordable college education when the bus pulled up in the harbor, and he was loath to interrupt her to get her back on the ship and into the infirmary. This time, though, she was a little more willing to lean against him as he guided her up the gangplank and through the ship’s mazes of corridors to the infirmary.

The narrow cots were full of the upper crust looking a little green around the gills, and a white-haired ship’s doctor pinballed back and forth, giving out Dramamine and gruff advice to puke in a bucket, not on themselves. Bill liked him immediately.

By the time the doctor got to Laura, Bill had eased her boot off her ankle and had her foot, swelling and turning an alarming shade of purple, resting in his lap. The doctor poked and prodded at her leg, asked her a few questions, and told her that she’d be fine if she just stayed shipboard and off of it for a few days. “Sorry,” he said. “But if you didn’t want your ass stuck on a ship, you shouldn’t have gone on a cruise.” He turned to Bill. “Keep your lady friend off her feet.” He raised a thick, white eyebrow. “Which is the point of a vacation like this, right?”

Between the two of them, they let loose an impressive, yet disjointed array of words, none of which was quite enough to make the point that they were together in the infirmary, but they weren’t _together_. The doctor didn’t seem to care, pushing them out the door while he waved an assistant toward a bedpan and a senior citizen who was starting to heave. “Go. Off your feet. Stay out of here for the next five days.”

Bill led Laura back through the ship. Her weight against him was starting to feel…right. Natural. He held her forgotten boot in one hand and her waist in the other, content to follow her halting directions back to her stateroom. One elevator and three turns, and he realized that the door he was standing in front of while she fished a key out of the pocket of her jeans was three doors down from his own.

He eased her down on the bed and dropped her shoe. Suddenly, he was at a loss as to what to do with his hands. With himself. With her. “Can I get you some ice?”

She nodded. “Yes. From the minibar. In a glass, with some Scotch.”

A woman who read and drank Scotch. He needed to call his sons tonight and thank them. He poured her a small measure of Scotch on the rocks and handed it to her, and at her raised eyebrow, he chuckled and poured himself a drink as well.

“So, Bill Adama. Rescuer of women.”

“So, Laura Roslin. Reader of books.”

She gave him a blank look, and he cursed himself for his involuntary slip. Of course she didn’t notice him that morning. He nodded at the battered paperback on the nightstand. “ _Blood Runs at Midnight_? Sounds awful.”

She let loose a full-bodied laugh that shook both her shoulders and her red-gold hair. “I know, doesn’t it? But it’s a pretty good mystery. If you need something to read, I’m happy to lend it to you.”

Bill grimaced. “Never lend books. You won’t get them back, and you’ll just be pissed. How about we trade?”

She leaned forward, meeting his eyes over the rim of her Scotch. “And what do you have to offer, Mr. Adama?”

The Almighty he didn’t believe in was testing him, and he was failing miserably. He drained his Scotch, then palmed her room key. “I’ll show you,” he said. He was out the door and halfway down the hall before she could even utter the slightest argument.

Two minutes later, he was back in her room with _Searider Falcon_ in his hand. “A fan of the classics, Madam Secretary?” he asked, holding the book out to her.

She accepted the hardback, stroking the cover almost reverently. “I haven’t read this one since college.” She flipped through the pages, settled against the headboard of her bunk, then started reading aloud.

Chapter seven, just where he’d left off. “‘The raft wasn’t as seaworthy as I’d hoped.’ This boat better be, or I want a refund.” She stopped reading long enough to pat the polyester quilt next to her. He sat gingerly on the edge of the bed, wanting to be close to her, but not wanting to be _that_ guy. The creepy guy on the singles cruise who hit on an injured woman who’d just had a decent amount of Scotch.

“Bill,” she said, “come here.” She snapped her fingers and pointed to the empty space on the bed.

With that stern voice, no wonder she was so effective as the secretary of education. She must have been hell in the classroom. Not wanting to further incur her wrath, and very much wanting to get another hint of her warmth, he eased himself onto the bunk, shifting until she was once again leaning against him. She hummed softly, then continued reading. “I wasn’t afraid to die. I was afraid of the emptiness I felt inside.”

With one hand, she held the book; with the other, she wrapped her fingers around his. She read the seventh chapter, then the eighth.

Over her soft voice, Bill could hear the dim echo of shipboard announcements and voices passing outside her door. Dinner was being served, shows were going on, the casino was probably packed, but he couldn’t think of anywhere else he’d rather be.

Best vacation he’d ever had.

**Author's Note:**

> Whoever sent this prompt, thanks :) This was really fun to write!


End file.
